December 10, 2007

According to press reports, the man who attacked two Christian outlets in Colorado yesterday did so as a reaction to being denied a bunk for the night at a youth missionary center. I'm sure I'm not the only one to note the irony.

You also have to wonder whether the gunman chose his second venue based on its association with the self-styled “Reverend” Ted Haggard, who resigned from its proprietorship under a cloud of methamphetamine smoke and a whiff of homosexual sodomy.

And why must we voice a heightened “sense of outrage” by dint of the shootings taking place in a “religious facility,” as Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter claims we must? Hell, there were armed guards at the New Life megachurch, where the gunman met his own new death.

Their presence denotes a heightened expectation of mayhem.

I don't see why senseless gun violence is any more or less regrettable or contemptible whether it occurs in a church or a biology lab. That the victims were nominally Christian makes no difference whatsoever. It's a bad deal regardless of the circumstances.

That they were nominal Christians and turned the man away from a bed for the night does make a difference, however, and it will be interesting to find out what the reasons for that were. And that the purported killer is being described variously as sporting a “beanie” or a “skull cap” makes it all the more intriguing.

eta: AP is reporting that police have been searching a home in Englewood, CO, southeast of Denver, which this site lists as the address of a local neurologist. Of course it could be in error, outdated, or any number of other things.

Indeed. The shooter is reportedly a former Christian missionary who hated Christians, and an armed guard is crediting the "Holy Spirit" with training her pistol on the man, although the police say he may have committed suicide.

Now, we find out, ironically, through McB's site that the woman police officer/security guard was fired from the Minney PD for lying during an investigation of her cussing out a bus driver. Pure as the driven snow is this woman.

And the autopsy confirms that the shooter made himself his final victim, with a shot to the head. Will the gun nuts now praise him and hold him up as their poster child? I can see it now, "If this young man didn't shoot and kill himself, how many more innocent lives might he have taken? That is why we need more guns!"